


Wake Me In The Morning

by silverware_and_glasses



Series: Approaching Humanity [1]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:42:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23013451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverware_and_glasses/pseuds/silverware_and_glasses
Summary: As Sebastian’s love for Agni grows, so does his capacity for human emotion. When quizzed on his sleeping habits, Sebastian has to grapple with some buried anxieties for the first time.
Relationships: Agni/Sebastian Michaelis
Series: Approaching Humanity [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1784293
Comments: 6
Kudos: 76





	Wake Me In The Morning

Sebastian had come to cherish the stillness that came after lovemaking. In those brief, perfect moments of peace there were no masters to serve, no place he had to be. He could simply lie still and exist, listening to the gentle slowing of breath as Agni drifted off to sleep. Sebastian never joined him in that land of rest. Tempting as it sometimes was, he had no intention of ever sleeping on these nights, not when every conscious moment with Agni was so precious.

This was the case whenever Sebastian and Agni could snatch one of their all too rare and coveted evenings together. Tonight, however, Agni’s breath didn’t slow. Sebastian didn’t mind. He enjoyed listening to the rise and fall of Agni’s chest regardless of whether he was asleep or awake. But soon the minutes drifted into an hour, and one turned into two, and Agni’s breath remained steady. He was still awake.

“Is something the matter?” Sebastian asked. Through the silence his whisper was deafening.

Agni flinched against him. “Not at all.”

“You’re lying,” Sebastian whispered.

“What makes you say that?”

“Because I can tell when you’re lying.” They lay in silence, Agni contemplating this claim. If he wasted to test it he didn’t say so. Sebastian wasn’t going to give him the chance. “Something is troubling you.”

The silence extended a moment longer as Agni grappled with his thoughts. He sat up and Sebastian ached at the sudden loss of his touch.

“I was waiting for you to fall asleep first,” Agni admitted.

Sebastian blinked. “Why would you want to do that?”

“Because I’ve never seen you sleep.” Agni shifted his weight onto one elbow, and peered down at Sebastian. Although Sebastian could see him clearly, he was sure Agni could see nothing more than an outline in the darkness with those weak human eyes. Even so his expression was serious, and he fixed his eyes on Sebastian’s form so firmly it felt as though he could see everything. “You always fall asleep after me and wake up before. I know it’s ridiculous but sometimes I worry that you don’t sleep at all. So I wanted to wait until you’d fallen asleep, just to reassure myself.”

“You wanted to…?” Sebastian put his hand over his mouth, smothering the smile that threatened to spill forth. He tried to convince himself it was because of how innocently human Agni was acting. In truth, a part of him he didn’t know could feel was soothed by Agni’s concern.

“I don’t sleep, Agni,” Sebastian said softly.

“You must at least sometimes.”

“No. I—” Sebastian sighed. He didn’t know how to explain this subtly. “I have no need of sleep.”

He expected Agni to protest, or to argue that all humans needed to sleep, but all things considered he took the revelation unexpectedly well. He did have a magic hand that granted him god-like strength. Perhaps perpetual insomnia was less incomprehensible than Sebastian thought it ought to be.

“You should. You would feel better for it.”

“I’m fine.”

“Sebastian,” Agni’s voice was firm, and through the dark he wore that same expression he always wore when he disapproved of Sebastian’s disinterest in self-care. “Why do you spend so much of your life taking care of everyone else when you’re so neglectful to your own needs?”

“You took care of my needs quite nicely earlier,” Sebastian remarked. Agni turned red, but otherwise didn’t react the way Sebastian wanted him. He seemed disappointed somehow. Another sigh left Sebastian’s lips, and he dropped his sardonic tone. “I could sleep, if I chose to. I simply choose not to.”

“But if you don’t sleep you’ll—“

“I don’t _want_ to, Agni!”

Sebastian froze, then recoiled at his own outburst. He darted his tongue out and… curses. His fangs were showing. At least it was dark enough that Agni wouldn’t have seen. All the same, Agni retreated, sitting up all the way and shifting further away from Sebastian.

“Why does it worry you?” Agni said. His voice was small, almost nervous after his scolding. How Sebastian regretted his words then. Agni was the one person who should never fear him, who he never wanted to see nervous in his presence. Sebastian sat up himself and peered at his hands through the darkness.

“May I be frank?”

“Of course,” Agni said. His earnest was disarming.

Sebastian thought his words through carefully, testing each word before he let it near his lips. Humiliating as it was to admit weakness, he had to tell Agni the truth. But he couldn’t reveal the full truth. One wrong word would expose everything. Would have Agni running for his life. He couldn’t risk losing the only piece of heaven a demon like him could ever hope to hold. “I have something of a tendency to oversleep.”

“Oh,” Agni looked relieved. “Is that all?”

“No, it isn’t.” Sebastian shifted closer to Agni, close enough that their arms pressed against one another. Agni seemed to sense his anxiety and closed his hand around Sebastian’s. It sent a jolt through Sebastian’s chest. How did Agni know that holding his hand would make him feel better? Not even Sebastian knew that would happen. The heat of Agni’s skin pressing against his own was like a healing balm, soothing a heart that didn’t beat yet still felt to be trembling.

He wanted to tell Agni everything. He would if he could. He’d scream his true nature to all the world if he only knew that Agni wouldn’t fear him, but for now the risk was too great. So he tiptoed around his words, never lying, never telling the full truth.

“If I’m left to sleep, I can remain that way for... a long time. Days even.” Days, months, years. He once slept for a century after gorging himself on plague victims. It had been a shock to awaken after that. “I worry that if I fall asleep I won’t wake up again. Not until you’ve...” he couldn’t say it. Hells, why couldn’t he say it? It felt like he’d swallowed something too big for his throat, and the words were getting caught around it. There was nothing wrong with death. It was simply the way a human ended, one last beautiful flash before their life winked out of existence forever. But the thought of that happening to Agni was too much. It hurt somehow. Were thoughts supposed to hurt? What had Agni done to him to manifest such feelings from thoughts alone? “...forgotten me,” he said instead. Those words still made his heart contort, but at least they didn’t make him feel that his own existence was about to shatter.

“You know that could never happen,” Agni said gently.

But it could. It _had_.

“I wish that were true,” he said.

“It wouldn’t happen,” Agni repeated, “because I wouldn’t let it.”

Sebastian stilled. “What?” He met Agni’s eyes, and found in them a softness so deep Sebastian felt his very identity unravel.

“I’d wake you,” Agni said. He ran his thumb in a soothing pattern across the back of Sebastian’s hand. “I wouldn’t want you to forget me either.”

“What if you couldn’t wake me?”

“I’d find a way.”

“And what if you couldn’t?”

“Even if you slept for a thousand years I would never forget you.”

“You won’t live for a thousand years,” Sebastian muttered. These words hurt too. In a thousand years Sebastian would still be alive, and Agni nothing more than the sweetest glimmer in his memory.

“And even then I couldn’t forget you. I’ll remember in the next life and the one after that. Even when I reach moksha and leave this world for good, I will always remember you.”

Sebastian felt like he was falling. His throat was full, his heart clawing against his chest and his eyes burnt for some unfathomable reason. He tried to blink the sensation away, but the sensation remained, sharp and cloudy.

“Thank you,” Sebastian said at last.

Agni laid his head on Sebastian’s shoulder, his hair brushing against Sebastian’s bare skin. “Besides,” he said lightly, “If I couldn’t wake you I’d bring Soma in to help. Not even you could sleep through that.”

Sebastian couldn’t help but laugh then. How was it possible that even though the fragility of these new and terrifying waves of emotion this man could bring him such happiness? How could he possibly be human, when he could work such magic?

“You may be right.”

They slipped back beneath the covers. Sebastian rolled onto his side, back to Agni, while Agni pressed against him, curling his arm around him from behind. There was little that could hurt Sebastian, and yet deep in Agni’s embrace he had never felt so safe.

“You should sleep,” Agni said softly through the dark.

“Will you wake me?” Sebastian asked. He already knew the answer, even before Agni’s lips formed around the words.

“I’ll wake you,” he said, “No matter what it takes, I will wake you.”

There was silence as Sebastian’s eyes grew heavy. Then, little more than a whisper, his whispered reply escaped.

“Thank you,” he said.

And for the first time in years, Sebastian slept.

**Author's Note:**

> Sebastian may have been uncharacteristically soft in this but I'm sick and what else is fanfic for if not self-indulgence. I hope you all like this as much as I enjoyed writing it!


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